About Us

Greyhound Welfare is a racing-neutral, non-profit greyhound adoption group. We place retired racing greyhounds throughout the metropolitan Washington DC area, to include DC, Northern Virginia, and Central/Southern Maryland. Our goal is to make excellent placements, even if that means fewer placements.

Greyhound Welfare is staffed entirely of unpaid volunteers who are dedicated to the welfare of greyhounds.

Our retired racers come to us from tracks in the Mid-Atlantic and South, and the dogs are transported to our area by truck. Our volunteers meet the truck drivers at highway rest stops, pick up our dogs, and after giving them a chance to stretch their legs, take them home. For most of these dogs, this is their first car ride, and boy, are they good at making nose prints on your windows! Once they arrive in their foster homes, dogs are groomed and bathed, fed and walked, and given a well padded crate to rest in after their long journeys.

Greyhound Welfare is a 100% foster home group, which means that all our greyhounds live in real homes until they are placed. This helps us teach the dogs about their new world, and learn more about the individual dogs. Knowing our dogs well helps us greatly with our placement success. It also helps us better help our adopters once the dog goes home.

Some of our dogs go home very quickly, and others stay a while – we don’t mind, as long as they all go to good, forever homes!

Service Areas

Greyhound Welfare’s service area includes Maryland, the District of Columbia, and northern Virginia.

We do a home visit for each adoption or foster placement, which gives our applicants the opportunity to meet a greyhound in your own home, and for the whole family to ask questions. Since a volunteer drives out to your home, we are limited by the distance you live from the closest available volunteer. To learn more about our Home Visits, please read our Adoption FAQ.

We hope to be able to serve you, and will try our hardest to. Please fill out an application form to get started!